Artificial Heart
by Yugoslavia
Summary: An accident that should have been fatal reveals that Lillie isn't exactly human. Ash must go to lengths to keep it a secret from his friends, all while trying to reconcile the strange relationship brewing between the two of them.
1. Chapter 1

A thin bridge spanned across a large expanse, maybe thirty or forty feet above where the ground beneath might have been—Ash didn't know, he couldn't see the bottom of the ravine from where the treetops of the jungle clustered beneath.

On the rocky, sun-baked ridge where he stood, just beneath the ledge of lush grass fields up ahead, Ash had stopped to look at the scenery while he waited. This was a new section of Mahalo Trail that Ash had never been to, but it was incredibly familiar. It was much like the section of bridge that he had taken before—the Plank Bridge, leading up to Ruins of Conflict that he had visited on one of his first trips exploring Alola—but this was a new section. In fact, from a distance he could see where the original bridge spanned. It was very different from the one that he had crossed just moments earlier, and that was still being crossed in that moment.

A creaking sound pulled Ash out of his distraction. He looked over towards the source of the sound—something he had heard near in the near immediate range of his person. Just in the corner of his vision, a large wooden post had been driven into a dust-filled hole in the rock, bending gently under the duress of the rope. The practically ancient rope looping around the post squeezed like an old hand gripping it, the lengths of rope wavering stiffly.

"A-Ash… I… The chances of this bridge holding are— _whoooaaa—_ are between seventy-two thousand six hundred and— _aaahh_ …!" Lillie cried out suddenly, breaking the droning sound of the rope stretching itself.

Ash—and Pikachu, who had climbed onto the grassy ridge above them and perched his squatty yellow body on the knot of an exposed tree root—looked over to see where Lillie's voice had come from. Though Ash knew it was his role as the person not in danger to stay calm, he couldn't stop himself from wincing with fear. He had to make sure that his feet were still on steady ground and a safe distance from the rocky edge of where the ledge ended.

The bridge snaked through the air, caught in a small side-to-side shimmy with the last vestiges of a small gust of wind passing through its thin frame. Just past the center was where Lillie stood, on the most stable section of wooden planking there was left. Most of the planks that made up the bridge, held by sections of looped-around rope to make a flexible and sturdy floor for people to cross on, had fallen through or remained crumbled, leaving some sections that required big leaps of faith. The last major swing in the bridge had passed Lillie, moving its way up towards the posts that had been planted by Ash like a rising crowd doing the wave. She was still holding onto the ropes with a grip that had turned her whole hands whiter than usual, praying silently that there wouldn't be another gust of wind.

The rickety sounds of the bridge were louder for Lillie in the epicenter of all the action. Though she thought the bridge had mostly settled, she felt the whole thing swing again, making her body sway out towards the side, her body bumping hard against one of the tattered lengths of rope she was clinging to. Snowy, the white Vulpix clinging to her shoulders for dear life, gripped with tiny paws to the collar of Lillie's dress and the bag slung over her shoulders. The little feral legs on her kicked and pawed ineffectively at Lillie's back as she tried to push off and get back onto her shoulders.

Snowy slipped off, dropping down onto the boards beneath with dusty thump. The sway of the bridge in response sent her sliding down the tilted boards, barely stopping herself when she kicked and wedged a doughy paw into where a board had splintered off and become smaller. One of her forepaws was able to stop herself against the rope that bordered the bottom edge of the bridge, keeping herself up.

"It's okay Lillie, there's no need to be afraid. You've got this!" Ash shouted, his reassuring voice echoing over the ravine, sounding distant from where Lillie was.

" _I'm not afraid!_ " Lillie shouted back, closing her eyes as she visualized her next move.

It had taken all of Lillie's strength to let one of her hands let go of the bridge's rope. Even though she had thought to lean against where her other hand held the rope, the sudden drop and tilt towards that side made her think twice—even if it was just a small dip. Planting both feet at the edge of the boards, leaning her body and her center of gravity towards the middle of the bridge, she reached into the duffel bag that hugged her side. Her hand nudged through the front flap until she found the lone item inside—Snowy's Pokeball. Taking a glance to where Snowy was struggling and sending micro vibrations through the section of bridge she was standing on, she took her Pokeball, pointing the capture button and pressing.

Lillie had accounted in her mind for the gentle lift in the bridge she was standing on once the weight of Vulpix was removed and stored safely in her Pokeball—it was basic physics to her. She had shut her eyes, looking away from the blinding red laser as it flashed in front of her. Once she felt that 'lift', the small springing motion that ballasted her up before settling back from a slightly higher spot in-air, she let her eyes open, finding the steps ahead of her.

She had kept the Pokeball in her hand, gripping it for safe-keeping. Instead of putting it back in her bag and letting her hand find the rope again, she moved forward with only the thought of getting across as quickly as possible. She took a few more steps, watching the planks stay sturdy beneath her as she still had a few good planks left. When she reached a gap in the bridge where a plank had been, she didn't think any more about it and pressed on with a wider gait.

Ash had breathed a sigh of relief, feeling better that Lillie was now moving—but it wasn't to last. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see something moving, accompanied by a rushing sound. It was the sound of a gust of wind whistling over the rocky walls of the ravine, coming close, and when he looked over to see where it was coming from he saw the swaying tops of trees moving in a line—the same 'wave' he might have seen in a crowd before—approaching the bridge.

" _Lillie!_ "

Lillie looked up, dumbstruck for a moment until she felt it. Her hair whipped around her as the bridge suddenly swung out. Her body nearly flipped, almost perpendicular as she fought to keep her balance, holding on when the bridge suddenly swung out the opposite way. In the flash of a moment when she knocked against the side of the rope, she felt her grip on the Pokeball loosen, getting whisked out of her hand, hurtling in an upward arc and then hurtling down towards the ground.

She watched as the ball tumbled through the air, her eyes wide and silent. She watched without any feeling behind her eyes, knowing that something was now very wrong.

The bridge then swung out again, snapping violently back like a rubber band, away from where it had warped out. The force of the bridge swinging back made Lillie take stumble forward, moved against her will across the narrow width of the bridge. She stumbled, her feet fumbling on the ground and tripping. She reached out for the length of rope in front of her, the taut guardrail that was supposed to be the best protection against her slipping and falling, but she missed. Her body tumbled forward, more force stil coming from the bridge as it swung back and sent her whole body like a ragdoll into the side of the rope. Her stomach caught the rope—a move that anyone watching from the outside, including Ash, could see the wind getting kicked out of—but it didn't stop her momentum. Her whole body flipped, her arms ineffectively reaching out and swinging around as she fell face forward.

Then, Lillie's legs kicked up behind her as her body flipped over, her stockings only lightly catching against the rope as she tumbled and fell down towards the ground, toppling and spiraling in air. Her white hat flung itself free of Lillie's head, unbinding her groomed and well-kept platinum blonde hair as it parachuted up.

" _Pika-a!_ "

Pikachu's cry broke what felt like an endless silence to Ash. He watched from the edge of the ridge, hearing tree branches snap when his friend smashed through the tops of the trees below.

* * *

A muddy section of rock stood at a steep incline, pressed to the base of the large and dusty cliff side Ash had just finished scaling down to. His sneakers hit the ground with a thud, landing on the small ridge beneath another one he had just descended from, having crawled along rocky grooves and small landings that cascaded down the face of the ravine like ladder steps. He had reached the last one, and though he had hoped for some kind of sloping path that may have been left behind from years-old explorers, he was left with this steep hill beneath. As he surveyed, leaning himself over the edge for a moment to look over and down, he planned his move briefly—he would have to jump down and land on it, planting his feet on the steep mass of rock and old mud, somehow stopping himself and then taking a few steps down what had to have been a sixty or seventy degree incline. All the possible trips and stumbles came to mind, something that wouldn't have made him as sick as he was if he wasn't thinking about coming across where Lillie had crashed.

"Jeez… Where's Rotom Dex when you need him? Sure could use _someone_ right now, even just to talk to about… this… " Ash grumbled, his hands curling into fists where they were held out at his sides, balancing himself where he stood. The toes of his sneakers crept over the edges of the cliff, keeping him as precariously over as he could to look into his landing zone below.

Just behind, Ash heard Pikachu kick off of the ground, his paws quietly scuttling across the dry rock. Before he could look behind, he felt a rush of air between his legs, looking down to watch as a yellow blur launched itself out from behind him. Pikachu leaped over the first, very steep hump of the rock and mud, gliding down to land on a hump in the formation that Ash hadn't seen, before racing down over the last and much steeper end of the mound. Before Ash could say 'Alola', Pikachu had landed on the wild grasses below, only slowing himself when he reached the shade of the trees.

"W-Whoa…!"

Ash felt himself tipping forward, caught off guard by Pikachu. One of his legs had slipped over like he was going to take a step forward, kicked out to re-balance himself. He waved and swung his arms behind him, paddling at the air to put himself back. When he managed to get a foot back on the ground behind him he took a breath, gasping.

"And there goes my other buddy. Great," Ash sighed, hanging his head for a moment.

Shaking out the tension from his shoulders and rolling them, Ash took a step back. He then hurried himself to the edge with pounding footsteps, leaping over the cliff's edge like he was ready to pencil dive into a pool. He reached with his legs, watching as the ground passed beneath him for a split second before a foot landed. The impact was hard, he could feel it through his leg, and even though it had taken a lot of effort to stop himself it wasn't enough—he was sliding, both of his feet finding no traction. The old mud slid out beneath his sneakers, grating over the rocks as he felt his body sliding. He took a few quick steps as he slid to bring him to the edge and jump again.

Ash stumbled, toppling through the air, shouting as he watched the ground race to meet him. He landed in a particularly large drift of grass, an airy rush cushioning him as he disappeared beneath the tall lengths. He landed on his side, still sore from it but managing to lose a lot of the hard impact just solely by hitting the grass beneath. It took several moments before Ash's arms reached out of the drift of grass, his fingers clawing at the dirt and dragging himself along his belly. Untangled, he was finally able to put his legs beneath him, putting him into a half-squat as he stood himself up. He had to take a moment to breathe and recover from the excitement of the day.

Up ahead, through the cover of darkness from trees overhead, a light shone through. There was a break in the 'roof' of the forest, where several branches had crashed in and been smashed by an impact: something had fallen from the sky to crash into the dirt below. Sunlight streamed through where something had visibly landed, making a bright and glowing spotlight on the ground, a marker for Ash to find Lillie.

Ash stood himself up, swallowing. He had been carried down to that point from the ridge above by pure adrenaline and a rush to come and save his friend, but it was now wearing off, visibly. The sweat that had formed all around his face was now growing cold, the blood draining beneath his tan complexion. His eyes grew faint and fuzzy as he thought of all the things he might see. Short of breath, he wondered if he should have just gone straight away to get help, instead of finding what was presumably a very hurt Lillie. He walked, passing where Pikachu had stopped at the edge of the forest, following Ash through where the grass hadn't grown nearly as much. The dry, crunching remains of the tropical leaves came behind Ash, reassuringly as Pikachu hung back. They shared a look when Ash paused to look back, with Ash unable to understand the strange, nauseated look on Pikachu's face.

Ash's footsteps slowed as he approached the glowing spot of sun on the forest floor. He stepped over broken branches with healthy leaves still clinging to them and fresh, pulpy points where they had just snapped off. There was a lumpy spot in the ground where something had made a hard impact. This had to have been where Lillie had landed, there was no mistaking it, but there was no Lillie. She was gone.

"L-Lillie…?" Ash asked aloud. For a moment, he turned his head, looking around for where his friend might have gone. It was possible, at least to him, that Lillie had survived the fall and possibly walked off.

As he turned his head, searching the surrounding areas for a sign of Lillie—anything at all—he found it. His eyes grew wide in terror.

There was a leg lying in the dirt.

Ash was shocked, but he wasn't disturbed. It was clear that the leg was severed, and yet… it wasn't. Ash couldn't really explain what he was seeing. There was something disturbing about where the leg was lying in the dirt, but not for the reasons Ash might have been disturbed when he first saw it. It clearly belonged to Lillie—obviously clad in the long white stocking that led up to just beneath where her knee would have been. Ash had seen cuts and where flesh had clearly split in injuries before, but this didn't look like it at all. The skin was torn just at where her calf ended, severed, but it looked papery. Getting closer, it looked like rubber, translucent and glowing near the edges like it was hollow. Ash thought he could see a near invisible grid that lined the inside of it from above, and as he passed around it he could see the inside of where the leg had been severed. Hanging out of the end of it where the flaps of 'skin' had been torn asunder, Ash saw tubes and cords resting on the ground, severed and fraying with wires sticking out.

A large, metal rod stuck out of the leg, prodding out into the dirt. At the end of it was a hinge, and it looked like it had been significantly warped. Where a bolt had formerly been attached was a large, stretched out hole that had been seemingly torn out. A glint in the dirt drew Ash's eyes to where the missing bolt rested in the dirt.

There was a part of Ash that almost wished it was a severed leg and not a mechanical part—it would honestly be easier to explain—but that wasn't going to be the case today. He looked, devoid of any emotion or feeling, down into the mostly hollow length of the leg. Large metal disks had been fitted to fill out sections of the leg, keeping it rigid and formed. On the inside of the leg, the grid Ash had seen from the outside lined the interior of Lillie's 'skin' like it had once been in a mold. Cables and hoses were coiled inside, linking to large hydraulic columns that passed through hinged sections of the fitted metal disks, supplanting where muscles would have been in a normal human leg.

"P-Pika!"

Though the sound of Pikachu's terrified cries startled Ash, he didn't show it. As he stood himself up, his eyes were locked on the leg in the dirt beneath him, quivering silently. He had to think to breathe, his breath coming out in stunted gasps that still left him deprived and hazy.

Pikachu was looking at something, he had frozen where he stood on the ground to look. Though Ash had an idea of what he might look over and see, he really didn't—he didn't know what to think any more. As he turned his head, he willingly ignored what was ahead of his vision in the forest, instead looking back to Pikachu. Even though he knew what Pikachu was probably looking at, looking at him made his heart sink, visibly. He then turned, looking back towards the ends of the forest.

Standing in a clearing between trees, an arm propping herself against the side of a tree while she balanced herself on one leg, was Lillie.

She looked dirty, ragged, but she was alive somehow—and surprisingly in one piece, for the most part. Her face was dark and overshadowed, even without her hat on, her bangs messed-with and dirt staining the sides of her cheeks. For a moment, it looked like her face wasn't sitting right, but a blink removed any suspicion of that for Ash as his view of Lillie became instantly clearer. She looked distraught, holding that same silent terror that Ash had in the features of her face—even if it wasn't the same kind of sanguine horror. All she had was missing a leg, where just at the ends of her skirt her leg was hanging down, just beneath the knot in her leg where her knee was. There wasn't any blood or gore, just cables and wiring hanging loose. The skin, though it had largely held its shape, was just as tattered at the ends of it as the leg that Ash had found.

"Ash… I'm…" Lillie stammered. She looked on the verge of tears, even though she didn't look like she was in any pain.

Ash's world was spinning. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't believe what was happening as his dead eyes stared out, only blinking to look up at Lillie. Her eyes seemingly glowed under the darkness of her own brow and the shade of the tree, glinting, looking glossy and… lifelike. Ash knew they weren't real. Even though it looked as though Lillie was silently begging him to believe they were, he couldn't.

"A… robot…?" Ash asked, finishing Lillie's thought.

"No—Ash—wait…!"

It was too late. Ash fell back, his leg going limp beneath him. The ground rushed to meet with him quickly, and when he hit it he didn't feel it—there wasn't anything he could do. He stared out at the forest scene in front of him, unable to look away. A dark shadow encompassed his vision from the side as Pikachu hopped across to see him—Ash unable to see Pikachu's face as it darkened but he knew it was distressed by the tiny, incomprehensible cries Pikachu was making—and the world went black.


	2. Chapter 2

"Now, Pikachu… Be very, very careful…"

Ash's eyes opened, reminding him he was alive as soon as sight and sound came flooding back to him. He looked out, staring at nature, the dry and dusty earth clustered in the right side of his vision where his head rested against. The ground was cool, and as more and more feeling returned to him after being asleep for what felt like forever, he felt a soreness through his body like no sleep he had felt in a long time.

Ahead of him, several dozen feet away, a creek cut through the clearing of jungle trees, the sparkling water catching his eye in the glow of the remaining afternoon sun. The sight of the refreshing creek was a welcome sight, but it made him think. He had seen that creek before, but not from down there. He had seen it from above, like he was on a hill, or—

A bridge.

Ash remembered the bridge he had been on before, a rickety bridge that spanned the ravine. He remembered he hadn't been alone. Pikachu was there, and… Lillie? He could barely remember her. There was something about the memory that was awfully fuzzy, and it brought up twinges of pain like it was something he didn't want to remember. This was more than an embarrassing memory, that alone made him feel strange, that there was something that had happened with Lillie that hadn't felt good or right. It was something that Ash had never felt before, he had never had a bad experience with Lillie before.

As Ash finally felt like he was awake, he became more and more aware of his surroundings. His eyes darted to the ground, narrowing when he looked at the dirt his head rested against—when was the last time he had fallen asleep outside? It was too hot to do that in Alola, and yet he some how had. Shutting his eyes, he reached for the ground, turning himself, inadvertently uncovering a plethora of new pain he hadn't realized he was in. It felt, to him, like any time he had fallen without stopping himself, which was strange in itself. As he rolled himself onto his stomach, a hand catching him from planting himself in the ground, his unkempt black hair fell over his face, coming loose from where it had been pressed against the ground, standing out in unusual spikes. Still, he finished levying himself over enough to put a foot beneath him, and stood himself up all the way.

It was when Ash had stood himself up, letting himself survey his surroundings, that he realized there was a sound coming from behind him. He hadn't noticed the sound of conversation coming from behind him, but he finally did as soon as he heard it stop completely.

A few loose, dead blades of grass crunched beneath Ash as he turned himself, alerting him to a similar shuffling coming behind him. A similar tree-line that followed the edge of the river ahead, and though Ash could see far down the line of trees, he couldn't really see much beyond that. In fact, there was no one or nothing that could have produced the sound of voices.

As Ash took a few confused steps back, he looked back at the tree in front of him. Opposite where his head had been laying, his hat was resting in the dirt, presumably rolled off, making him wonder if he had rested his head against the tree earlier. As he scanned the immediate area, letting his gaze wander, he saw something poking out from the side of the tree trunk in front of him: it was a yellow, thunderbolt-shaped tail, standing out like it belonged to his favorite companion.

"Pikachu…?" Ash asked, deeply confused.

The tail then disappeared behind the trunk, snapping back towards its owner and hiding itself.

Ash wasn't convinced. He frowned, even wondering for a moment if he would be doing the right thing by hanging back. Instead, he moved himself out from behind the tree, moving around the tree—still keeping his distance from it, just in case. As he brought himself around, he saw a fidgeting motion just beyond the edge of the tree and where his vision could take him. He moved quicker, trying to see just exactly what was going on.

It was Lillie, sitting at the base of the tree, exactly opposite where Ash had woken up moments ago. She looked timid, afraid of Ash, watching in horror as he approached. Her extremities, her lips, her hands where they clutched the wide, dusty hat that covered itself over her legs and her lap, all were trembling.

Lillie's wide-brimmed, white hat had almost entirely turned a tan shade, filthy and tattered from the dirt. It had clearly taken a tumble, rustled up and looking disgusting, like it had been dragged through the dirt. Indeed, by the way that Pikachu had pressed himself up against it, clutching the side and mashing in the rounded top of it with his belly, it looked as though he was taking a certain amount of responsibility for what had happened to the hat, like he had been the one to drag it through the dirt and bring it to Lillie. Still, with the way Pikachu was pressing himself against the hat, it looked like he had something to hide—Ash knew that, he saw it in Lillie's eyes when he looked up to see her.

"H-Hi Ash… Did you… are you okay…? " Lillie said, in-between swallowing audibly. She looked like she was between lying and coming out and acknowledging something, Ash couldn't tell. Her paper-white complexion was giving it away as it slowly turned red.

As soon as Ash looked into Lillie's eyes, he remembered. It all came back to him.

The bridge—yes, the bridge. Ash had remembered the bridge, but he had forgotten Lillie. She had been on it, and then she had fallen off.

Then Ash had come down, and found a leg.

A mechanical, robotic leg.

"Lillie… Your leg…"

Lillie looked up with a deathly look. Her cheeks really turned red, glowing brightly. The sudden stifling of breath made her rise uncomfortably, her lips buttoning themselves together as she held back a sound, instead making her cheeks puff out uncomfortably. Her fingers grasped uncomfortably at the edge of her hat where both of her hands held it and covered her lap with it, grasping closer at the lone thing that offered her protection.

"W-What about my leg, A-Ash…?" Lillie squeaked, putting on a wide, toothy smile. Her eyes that avoided Ash failed to sell it, much to her silent terror as the shadow of Ash approaching eclipsed the sunlight on her face.

Ash squatted down, bringing himself in front of Lillie. It was becoming impossible for Lillie to avoid Ash as he brought himself closer, but she still craned her neck away, almost entirely pressing her face against the side of the bark, throwing away any attempt to find a natural posture in some desperate bid to look away from Ash.

"Lillie… Please… Show it to me…?" asked Ash, still looking at Lillie. His eyes were soft, earnest, not a single threat held in them. Even if Lillie was seeing it and could believe it, there was nothing that could drive her to do it.

Lillie felt a small weight leaving her lap. She looked down, her head tipping back just a bit from the other side where she had been looking and avoiding Ash. By her side, where Pikachu had been holding the hat down against her lap and hiding Lillie's situation from Ash, he relinquished, stepping back a bit. The wide white brim slowly returned to its shape, making her have to adjust herself. She couldn't keep all of her leg hidden under the hat, more of her ankle showing where her foot stuck out, and though her eyes darted towards it to check she returned her gaze quickly back to her side where Pikachu was still standing—he had backed away, leaving Lillie be, but looking meaningful. He nodded along, as if he could read Lillie's thoughts and was confirming the one on Lillie's mind.

Though Lillie's mouth hung open like she was going to finally say something, she looked back up to Ash, freezing up. The terror returned, her pupils shrinking back, her fingers clamping down on the hat, but her mouth still hung open.

"O-Okay…" Lillie said, quietly.

Though her fingers curled at the edges, holding it gently, she lifted the hat from her lap. She reached for the curved head of it, lifting it up slowly, then setting beside her in the dirt.

A rock had been propped underneath Lillie's thigh, holding up the end that had been severed. Cables were nestled inside, plugs and severed wires, hanging out of the end where her 'skin' had ruptured. A large hydraulic pump hung down, seemingly once supposed to have been fit inside the underside of the calf, with a metal plate that had been ruptured where it had once attached to one of the fitted metal disks inside the calf. Beside, where the other half of Lillie's leg had been, was propped up on a rock to align as close as it could with the open section where it had once been attached.

"I've… I've been trying to repair it since you fainted…" Lillie spoke up finally, her voice sounding somewhat rusty and unused from purposely bottling up all the sound inside herself. She swallowed painfully in a silent attempt to clear out her throat, gathering herself for a moment before looking back up at Ash. "You're… You're not going to faint again, are you?"

"No… I guess I know what to expect now, right? Eheh..." Ash chuckled. His attempt at lightening the situation didn't even lighten himself, and he held back for a moment like it was a fart that hadn't cleared itself.

Then, seeing a clearing by Lillie's side where Pikachu had moved closer to Ash's side, Ash sat himself down on the grass to face Lillie. His legs folded together and he sat hunched over and attentive, looking at Lillie through the dark streaks of hair that colored his own vision—it was the first time he had really had the chance to see Lillie's face, even since she had fallen from the bridge. The entire time he had spent with Lillie in the few moments since he had woken up were all spent wondering what had been underneath the hat covering her leg, wondering if he had really seen something mechanical, but now that he knew he could really turn to Lillie's current state of mind. She looked off, she looked guilty and full of doubt, her movements cold. Even if Lillie had always been one to shy away and reserve herself, she had always done so with an energy that wasn't there any more.

"Are you like that… all the way through?" asked Ash. The words were uncomfortable, he didn't know how to say them.

Like she was on the verge of bursting out in tears, Lillie nodded silently. She was shrinking back, her one good leg shrinking back towards her body. Her head slumped down, long platinum blonde bangs hanging down to overshadow and block her face from view. Even still, through her still and silent features, she was only looking down. Her lips remained pursed, unable to bring herself to say anything.

Ash thought about leaving, a thought that turned his stomach even if it only lingered for a split second. He looked off like he was looking for Pikachu, even if he knew he was right by his side, looking away like the jungle might offer some solution; it didn't, only reminding him that the both of them were a long way from home. Still, Ash felt stuck with Lillie, and there wasn't much solution left.

"I'm sorry…"

Something about the way Lillie said it was strange, but it wasn't the reason he looked up. There was some way through this predicament, and it was through Lillie.

"Sorry for what…?" Ash asked, genuinely. It was all he could do when he deep down knew that talking through this with Lillie would be the solution, despite not knowing what the solution might be. "Do you think it's weird that you're a r—" Ash paused himself, trying to be delicate when phrasing the strangeness of it all, something he already wasn't good at. "Well, that you're not exactly—" He stopped himself again. "That you've got, wires? In you…?"

"A-Android," Lillie said, matter of factly, something that strangely cut through her quiet and moping voice—despite having traces of tears in her voice. "I'm a-an A-Andr…" she had to cut herself off before the tears came, and audible, hoarsey choke coming. I… I lied to you… that was wrong of me. And… I lied to everyone else…"

Ash looked thoughtful. It took him a moment to process that, to run the thoughts through his head, even to come up with some semblance of a solution. Even still, he reached across, his hand finding where Lillie's rested around her free leg. Grasping at it, putting his hand atop it barely got a response from her, until her hand turned and found his, holding weakly.

"It's okay," Ash smiled. "I'm figuring out too… But we'll figure a way out of this together, alright?"

Beneath the ends of her hair, Lillie's hidden face filled with even more doubt. She shut her eyes, shutting out the feeling from coming out.


	3. Chapter 3

Servos wheeled inside the severed half of Lillie's leg that was still attached to her hips, the leg fidgeting as Lillie tried to keep her balance. Without calf attached to it yet, it moved like a stiff thumb at the end of Lillie—a strange motion on top of an already strange display. Beneath the edge of Lillie's skirt, where her free hand had held the edge of the dirtied white fabric just slightly back on her thigh, the artificial skin bulged—Ash's arm was buried inside her thigh, reaching deep inside for something.

"It's red, black, and blue… It's like a… a…" Lillie stammered, not sure whether to pay more or less attention.

Lillie had her broken leg propped up on a smooth stone, raised just enough so that the thigh still attached to her hip was straight. Having hands automatically made Ash a much better assistant than Pikachu had been, with the way he had propped the rock beneath her leg keeping it straight and perfect for lining up the other leg to be reattached. He was able to lean in and peer down, looking down the hollow inside of her leg and through the mechanics that filled the hollow sleeve—something that made Lillie want to look away even more.

Ash still wasn't used to having his hands inside of Lillie, not that he thought he ever would be—at least like this. If his friend Sophocles were here he would have been on the wrong end of a dirty joke about it by now, but the rubbery feeling of the underside of Lillie's skin kept his mind from wandering too far. The underside felt like a rubber mat, with the ribbed inside—the 'grid' that he had seen from the translucency of the outside—keeping the skin rigid and resistive like it was full of flesh—and, supposedly, was where the feeling receptors were housed.

"Is it… This one…?" Beneath the tattered edge of Lillie's ripped silicone skin, Ash produced a cable from the underside. He pulled it out just far enough, showing the round black connector at the end of it, pulling it out far enough to show the three tangled and thick wires that snaked around to make the connector at the end of it. They were red, black, and blue.

Lillie nodded quietly, quickly. The skin flexed as Ash pulled it out, but Lillie didn't feel a thing. Still, he moved quickly like she might have been.

"Yesyesyes, just…" Lillie swallowed. Her voice was stifled and starved of breath. Her face was turning whiter than usual, looking like she might faint any second.

The stocking on her calf had been rolled down, giving Ash access to the invisible zipper that traveled down the underside—something that the stocking kept from view, as Ash was learning. With the zipper down, the insides of the mechanical leg exposed, Ash looked between the metal rungs where fitted metal disks held the shape of the leg and where bundled cables snaked through engineered holes. Several thin pistons lined the inside, connecting like tendons to key parts of the leg and the foot underneath, and when Ash nudged them reaching inside to find a certain cable, they shifted around to limply move certain parts of the foot and little muscles beneath.

"Red, black, and blue… It's really thin," Lillie repeated. "It should be tucked underneath panel A-3—er, uhhh… The front of my leg. There's a small little clip, and a—"

"Red tag?" Ash interrupted. There was a small clipping noise from the inside, and as his hand slipped out of the narrow clearance around the pumps and pistons, he produced a thin cable with the exact coloring Lillie had described—and a red tag, hanging from the side. The small black-tipped connector had a thick and tightly braided set of red, black, and blue cords, leading to something deep inside her leg.

Something strange had happened. Ash hadn't quite figured it out, as his attention was on the two cables. He held both lengths—both the same kind of red, black, and blue cable—looking at the connector on the one he had pulled from the severed half of her leg, mentally lining it up. In his other hand was the cable pulled from inside the hollow, severed end of Lillie's thigh—the cable also had black connector, but it was female, a point where the other cable would have plugged in. He held the two out close together, ready to plug them in, and paused.

A long moment passed before Ash realized what had happened—it was silence. He had been waiting for some kind of response from Lillie but he hadn't gotten it, instead left in silence. Though he had had his attention on getting ready to connect the cables, he looked up to where Lillie was looking back at him in total silence.

"What's wrong?" asked Ash. He watched as the sound of his voice broke what was visibly a string of self-loathing, fearful thoughts Lillie had been trapped in when she looked back up. She refocused, quickly wiping away the tears that were building beneath her eyes with a finger—almost pretending like it hadn't happened. Ash never looked away, but instead put on a gentle smile.

"N-Nothing…" said Lillie, not doing a good job of lying. She almost immediately avoided eye contact, again, looking away from Ash and looking away from the leg, off at the distance—Ash knew it was nothing. "Go ahead and connect the cables… I'll… I'll need you to…"

As Lillie looked off, the moment Ash had spent trying to engage with her—again—had failed. His smile faltered, and he felt the urge to sigh creeping up on him. It wasn't nearly as frustrating, instead feeling more discouraged at any of it. As he looked down at the two cables in his hands, he let that urge to sigh get the best of him and come to the forefront, but instead used it to carry on and press forward despite Lillie's almost purposeful willingness to not help at all.

"Come on, Lillie," said Ash. He pulled the cable out further, only hesitating to reach down and feed the cable back down and loop it beneath where it had caught on another cable inside the leg. "This doesn't work if you don't talk with me. I know this is—well—I know this is really, really weird, for, um, the both of us… but I need your help, okay?"

"But… But…" Lillie stammered. "But I, I— _Ah!_ "

Something broke Lillie's attention. It looked like she had been prodded, her expression leaping for a second, a tiny gasp coming from her. Though she had wanted to respond and had been genuinely, visibly mulling over what Ash had said, all of her thoughts reset in a cold, clean moment. She looked down, wide-eyed, trying to realize what exactly had just happened when she saw her leg. The cables had been connected, linking her legs together from the edge of her thigh down to her calf.

"Yes?" Ash asked. He was leaning in closer, looking up from where he had made the connection, searching her face beneath where the straight ends of her bangs had fallen over her brow and obscured the tops of her eyes. He thought he had seen a flash of light beneath her eyes, like they were transparent and something had glowed underneath in the instant where he had connected them. It wasn't that Lillie was staring off to space, it was that she was looking down, looking down at the edge of the severed—now re-connected—leg. She was looking at the end of it, where her foot was, and as Ash followed her line of sight and looked down he saw it too.

Lillie's ballet flat shoe had once been a pure, glossy white, but it had become beaten and scuffed with alll that had transpired that day. Where scuffs had marked the shiny surface had become trenches for dirt to set in and color her shoe a tan brown in places. The side wall was bashed in and torn where Lillie had accidentally stepped on it. It was lying only a few feet away from her foot, the white stocking that covered it similarly turned gray and dark in places, small tears in the fibers surrounding her foot and leading to deeper gashes along the stocking, her skin hardly touched underneath.

There was something new with the leg, Ash was noticing: her toes were moving. The thin white material flexed beneath the reach of her toes as they slowly curled and unfurled, feeling out the newfound sensation in Lillie's lower half.

Ash was awestruck, watching in silence with Lillie as her whole foot flexed, turning on her ankle just gently enough to not disturb where her calf was still practically hanging on by a thread. As he looked up towards Lillie, looking back and seeing the look on her face, he realized he was making eye contact again. There was a certain wonderment in her eyes, but it was all very intent on her eyes.

In an instant, Lillie reached down and grabbed Ash's hand. He looked down, seeing where she had touched him. He was deeply confused, unable to make sense of the gesture and what it meant—although one possibility came to mind.

Then Lillie yanked Ash's hand out from the open recess of her leg, pulling it out sharply.

"Lillie, what are you—?"

It happened again. Ash saw the flash of light beneath the transparency of her eyes—and several, like lights on a computer processing something. It stopped him from finishing his thought, watching in confusion and awe.

Suddenly, a mechanical pump hissed sharply inside of Lillie's leg, a metal arm shooting out from beneath the hollow, rigid skin in her leg and reached out, shooting through the space of air where Ash's hand had been. The shiny, metal arm was rigid, and had a set of clamps on the end of it. The clamps rotated, a small light flashing and aligning with the broken steel rod—the rod that was, in practice, Lillie's femur—and clamped down, sealing it to the leg. Several metal sub-clamps locked the two, large plates of the clamp around the leg, sealing with little snaps and sealing themselves into perfect alignment.

Ash finally let out a tensed breath. Lillie did too, and when he looked up they both exchanged a nervous, terse glance. Where Ash had backed himself away, shuffled away from the sudden mechanical happening inside the leg, he peered down into the leg—after first making a cautionary glance to Lillie. The leg was perfectly sealed together from the inside, small whirring sounds accompanying it as tubes reached down and connected to sealed ones inside.

"S-Sorry…" Lillie gave a weak smile. "I figured you didn't want to be in the middle of that…"

Though terror was painted all across Ash's face, he offered a smile at the joke. He looked back at where Pikachu was, just several feet in front of where Lillie sat, not sure if everything was necessarily safe, raising his ears slightly at the sound of Ash and Lillie chuckling to themselves.

"Can you stand…?" asked Ash, looking back at Lillie.

At that, Lillie went from her leg up to Ash. The thought of what Ash was suggesting made her quiet, and she tensed up. Her mouth hung open like she had something to say, but there really wasn't anything for her to say. She just looked back down at her leg, and then off. Something was wrong—out of the corner of her eye, Ash was catching on, his determination turning into a frown when he realized there was another catch to what was going on.

Then, a hissing sound—coming from within Lillie's leg.

A white cloud of smoke jetted out from the open side of Lillie's thigh. A thick, fibrous haze engulfed her suddenly, and Ash had to stand himself up to get out of the way—the memory of the last time something had suddenly erupted from her leg still fresh on his mind. As he covered his face with an arm, stepping out of the way suddenly, he couldn't stop himself from looking up over his arm to look back at the cloud of pure white that had erupted out. The hissing hadn't stopped, and the cloud had reached past the treetop. A horrific smell emerged, something like burning plastic, keeping Ash at a distance as he watched and kept himself from breathing it in. Out of the corner of his eye, Ash watched as Pikachu had dived out to the side, crying out in shock and sprinting behind the tree. Still, squinting, he tried to watch and see Lillie through the mess of smoke. He could barely see where her leg was sticking out beneath the swirling jets of smoke, showing that she remained perfectly still.

When the hissing stopped, it didn't take too long for the vast bulk of pure white smoke to lift through the branches and past the treetops, wafting up and dissipating like the remains of a campfire. The thickness of it made the leaves waft gently, rushing up to disappear quickly. Still, little wisps of smoke hung around Lillie obfuscating her.

"Lillie…"

Ash was just about done asking questions—not necessarily because he wasn't getting answers, but because he didn't know what to expect any more. He had to think to blink, his eyes wide with terror as he stared at Lillie's obscured figure. When he rushed up, hurrying through the smoke and brushing it away—Pikachu's paws thumping on the ground behind him as he ran up to meet Ash—he first looked down at the leg, looking at where the severed leg had been.

The skin had repaired itself—mostly. A new wire mesh grid had formed over the leg and taken the shape of the skin that had been there before, looking just about identical to what was on her other leg with the three-dimensional shapes of the lean muscles and other hidden shapes any natural skin would have alluded to. New skin had taken the place of the gaps in her leg, filling in the large gashes and tears that had been there before. However it was incomplete, and where skin had been grafted on over the invisible mesh it wasn't quite right. There were large stretches where the skin wasn't right, looking naturally pigmented and having all the right features but having long holes like Swiss cheese with the near invisible strands of plastic that constructed the mesh grid showing through. The synthetic skin had become oily, runny, and shiny like fresh rubber. Around where the newly-made hinge resided beneath the skin, the dimpled flesh that would have shaped her knees was nonexistent, and little dribbles of synthetic skin had dripped onto the hinge.

As the smoke cleared, Ash heard a sniffling sound coming from just above where he had been looking. It was Lillie, and she was crying again.

"No, no... I-It didn't work again… I-It didn't work…!" Lillie gasped through her tears, barely able to keep her eyes open as they welled up with tears. Her hands trembled, held up close to her in little balled fists as she stared at the skin. She shifted her leg around like it might finish the job, making the tattered skin sway limply around in the air. "Oh g-goodness…" Her voice was trembling, her hands smacking at her own face, rubbing at her sobbing eyes weakly and blindly rubbing with the heels of her hands.

"Wait, wait, hold on," said Ash. He reached out, getting himself down on a knee to bring himself level with her, totally unsure of what to do as she watched her freak out. "This is fixable, we can work with this. Just—"

" _No_."

Ash looked up at her with the strangest look. His mouth hung open, ready to keep saying the same things he had been saying only moments earlier, but he couldn't bring himself to do it again. He was too confused for words.

Before he could get an answer from Lillie, he watched wide-eyed as she reached for her leg. Her fingers suddenly hooked through the wide, loose holes in her synthetic skin.

"W-We can't leave…!" Lillie shouted, her voice croaking. She then ripped the skin clean open, re-exposing the bare metal around her knee.

A strange sense of horror gripped Ash, the sight of Lillie ripping off her own skin—even if it wasn't real—totally catching him off-guard. His mind jumped at the chance and knew exactly what to do, and though he watched as Lillie grabbed at the skin again to tear more of the incomplete section he jumped in, grabbing her wrist. He yanked it free, pulling away her fingers from grabbing at what she could and pulling them free. She fought, her arm forcing back at Ash's like they were arm-wrestling in the air—Ash hit with the sudden surprise of Lillie's incredible, inhuman strength when she won hard. Ash managed to wrestle it away from her leg, moving it into a different direction and forcing Lillie to wrestle their arms in a different direction. Her other arm shot out and reached for her leg again, getting ready to tear when Ash reached out to catch it with his other free hand.

"Hrrrgghh… L-Lillie…! This is insane!" Ash said, his voice muffled and strained as he clenched his teeth. He was caught in an awkward position wrestling Lillie's arms to the ground.

Through his one open eye, he looked down to his arm and where he had caught Lillie's wrist, watching as it snaked around in his grip, turning itself into position for a perfect bicep curl, ready to push back hard. Something clicked mechanically, and Lillie's arm stopped struggling, locked rigid in position like he was holding an arm-rail.

" _Hyaaahh!_ "

Lillie's arms pushed, the superhuman strength in them shoving Ash back. She flung him, hard. Ash spent almost no time in the air, hitting the ground and practically being driven into it with the remaining force of it. He skidded along the dry earth and through thick patches of loose grass, flying across it like he was tumbling down a hill. The only thing that stopped him from flying any further was the hard collision against the side of a tree, where his body hit hard and flung his body sideways into a patch of ferns.

His head hit a rock, hard, dazing him and making him slump over. He didn't want to get up, instead staying near unconscious on the ground. His face twisted up, eyes forcibly shutting as his body quietly writhed, his arms blindly trying to reach around to his side to straighten himself but finding nothing to latch onto. He managed to keep himself from passing out, eventually shoving his arm back behind his head and wedging it between his sore head, the tree trunk behind him and the thick emergence of rock from the dirt underneath. He managed to lower himself, laying himself out flat on the ground and his head on softer dirt. He took a breath, relaxing himself—just keeping the pain in from that had exhausted him.

"Ohhh…" Ash groaned. He had finally settled, finally past the feeling of passing out.

Almost as soon as his senses were coming back, he could hear the sounds of Lillie's footsteps hurrying over to his side. He saw the dark shadow of her coming over him, Pikachu's dark shadow appearing by his side and blocking out the sun from his vision. It made him stir, trying to get himself up but not quite finding the strength to do it.

"Ash… Oh Ash, I'm… I'm so sorry…! I… I don't know what came over me!"


	4. Chapter 4

"Ohhh…"

As Ash's eyes opened, his dulled senses were met with the muffled sound of footsteps rushing towards him, thumping and coming steadily over the ground. At first he thought they were Pikachu's, but as his senses cleared and his buzzing head returned to reality he realized what they really were—Lillie's. This made Ash tense—it was an involuntary reaction, something that even surprised him as he became more tense than he had ever been before around Lillie. There wasn't much he could do, with even the littlest movement shooting pain through every muscle in his body, and opening his dazed eyes felt like he was getting blinded. He could hear how quickly she was running, she was on him in mere seconds—faster than any normal person Ash had ever heard run. Ash was putting his arms beneath him, pushing himself up, his weak and trembling hands clawing a dirt as he pushed himself up with the little remaining strength he had—despite the pain, he knew he had to get up. He tried kicking his legs up and tried to put some momentum into pulling himself up, his body tipping sideways in ways he had never experienced with less control than he had ever felt when his legs barely left the ground at all.

"Ash…"

Ash tried opening his eyes again, barely able to get them to squint, much less look at the voice that had been above him. The world around him was blurry, but he could see he was further down and closer to the banks of the river than the shady place under the tree. He felt cold, wet mud staining the backside of his shirt, tall fronds of wild grass tickling his arms as he got up.

All of his vision immediately sharpened as he felt footsteps crunching right beside him, almost landing beside him like they had come from the sky. Ash covered himself as he felt movement just outside him, but it was no use—Lillie was grabbing his arm, turning him sharply. Before he knew it he was on the ground, pushed down by force. He dropped onto his back, the pain muffled through his backside, his head thudding to the ground as he fell against wild grass and thick clods of dirt. A weight dropped onto his hips and his stomach, a sensation that only felt like pinning when he suddenly had two hands grabbing his wrists and forcing them to the ground above his head.

Then, Ash opened his eyes, looking up towards Lillie's face when she looked down on him.

"Oh goodness, _goodness_ goodness… Ash, you don't look too good…"

Lillie's voice was distant. Ash hadn't quite recovered all of his senses, the world seeming hazy all around him. As he looked up to see Lillie's face, he realized he couldn't really see it. It was obscured by a haze, impossible to see no matter how hard Ash squinted. The sun backed her head, making her nothing but a dark mass, making as clear to him as she would be a mile away even if she really was only a few feet away from him.

Through the weakness of Ash's own vision, he could begin to see details, and he wasn't quite sure what he was seeing. Her face was shrouded in darkness, but there were dark parts to Lillie's face that were more than just a trick of light or a blemish. The skin looked like it was broken and missing pieces—dark lines tracing through Ash's dim view of what he could see. He had seen it before, and the first thing that came to mind when he saw it was Lillie's broken knee, where the skin had separated and he had seen the silvery components inside. Squinting harder made him think he was seeing something glint through the darkness, realizing he was looking at parts where the skin had separated and exposed the inner-workings of Lillie's mechanical face. He thought he could hear clicking sounds, hearing parts moving underneath. The warped vision he had only showed dark objects where Lillie's eyes were, seeing the flit about in quick, mechanical movements wherever they could.

Though he could only see so much, he didn't want to see much more. Ash's instinct to shrink back found his head pressing against the base of the tree supporting his back. He reached around to find anything he could hold onto like he was going to move himself away, but his arms felt heavy and barely moved when tested against Lillie's grip.

"You look scared… Are you feeling okay?" asked Lillie. Her voice was seeming less distant and more tinny, like a recording.

The weight against Ash's hips shifted, coming closer onto him. Ash felt the presence of something in his immediate vision, his skin prickling when it came closer. He was turning, keeping his head away, desperate not to see what had become of Lillie's face.

"Ash please…" She was sounding more and more desperate.

He could feel her breath against his face—musky and foul, like a beast. There was no escaping it. Ash turned, looking up at Lillie.

It wasn't what he had expected at all. Her face had been replaced by a boxy frame, made of thin and glossy-green metal plates. Her eyes were round, plastic, and red, translucent and looking like old tail-lights. Her nose was nothing more than a raised plate, part of a 'T' shaped panel that had been bolted on in place of both a nose and eyebrows. Her ears had been replaced by large, wiry antennas with blinking lights at the end of them, sticking oddly through her long blonde hair. Down beneath, a metal grill had replaced her mouth, the amber transparency that filled her 'teeth' beneath lighting up with each word she spoke.

"Do… _Do you think I'm pretty, Ash_ …?"

Then, Ash blinked. It was all a dream.

Ash woke up. When his eyes opened for real, looking past the blinding light of reality around him—and realizing he was exactly where he had been, flung on the ground—the dim sunlight above that overshadowed the world as it passed into evening, he saw Lillie. She was looking down at him, looking as real and human as ever.

"Ash… Oh Ash, I'm… I'm so sorry…! I… I don't know what came over me!"

Every real detail about Lillie's face came into sudden, perfect detail for him as he stared up at her, almost unable to look at anything else with her distraught look filling up to the corners of his vision. His eyes remained frozen open, staring up in disbelief—he wasn't even quite sure this wasn't a dream, but the sounds of Lillie beginning to sob coupled with the incredible pain in his head, assured him this was all very real.

" _Aaaaahhh!_ "

Ash nearly screamed, his voice breaking in the middle of the violent, terrified shout. He scrambled to get away, just the mere thought of Lillie being as close as she had been in the dream made his heart stop and the whole cavity of his chest throb with fear.

Lillie didn't know what to think. Her eyes shrunk back at Ash's reaction to her. It made her sit up on her knees, trying to contain her own fear—something she was visibly struggling with. Though she had brought herself down to Ash's side, kneeling awkwardly on both a good knee and a bad knee, her hands hovered awkwardly between different tasks she had momentarily stopped from. She had gone to place a hand down on his leg, reassuringly, to both test his dazed senses and provide some comfort—and also balance herself off of her exposed mechanical knee. She had also gone to reach up to Ash, to grasp for him and hold him—grasping for his head or his shoulders, she didn't know, there was no plan at this point.

"Ash—Oh, oh goodness… I'm… A-Ash…!" Lillie struggled, incoherently. Ash was still trying to get away, and yet she didn't want to jump in and send into an even worse panic, but there was little she could do. She looked around for some kind of solution, looking down where by Ash's squirming leg where Pikachu had finally just arrived, standing himself up. "Just stay calm, okay? I'm so sorry! I… I didn't mean to…!"

The realization had taken awhile for it to come to Lillie, but when it came it was like a shock to the heart—it was her. Ash was terrified of _her_. She knew exactly what she had done—even if she hadn't meant it. The tense, terrified look on her face fell, dropping off slowly and sagging down into a sadness. Her mouth hung open with nothing to say, her tensed arms that had been held out and hovering at the first chance she saw to help Ash had now sagged to hang at her sides. She sat herself back on her haunches where she was kneeling, her hands folding to rest in her lap. When she looked to the ground she took a breath, shuddering quietly, failing to keep anything to herself as is. Her eyes looked like she had run out of tears, she looked like she was miles away from Ash, and she didn't look like she was coming back to the conversation any time soon.

She pushed herself off of the ground gently, slowly raising onto two legs. The exposed knee made mechanical sounds with nothing to keep it inside, a hydraulic pump slowly extending out as she found level footing on the ground. She folded her arms like she was cold, walking away from where Ash had been laid to rest, walking towards the grove on the opposite side and leaving the last vestiges of Ash's vision.

Though Ash had been watching from where he was laid up, his neck suddenly gave out and his head dropped from the strain of looking up towards Lillie. His head fell back, and he used the last of the strength in his neck to stop his head from dropping against the rocks again, painfully lowering it back to rest flat. His shoulders loosened and his arms rested down by his side to feel some relief in his sore muscles. Though his mind teetered on the edge of falling back into the pseudo, half-sleep it had been when he had the vision, the fear in him kept him from slipping into it again. He looked uncomfortable as he laid there, visibly straining to keep himself from passing out.

"It's too late…" Lillie whispered quietly.

The sound of Lillie's voice gave Ash something to focus on. He knew he would snap out of it, he could feel little bursts of clearheadedness reaching him, but it would take time. He needed to latch onto something, and staring up at the underside of a leafy jungle tree wasn't going to do it. As much as he didn't want to, he had to strain to listen.

"I should've known from the start… It was too late from the moment I fell…"

Ash couldn't see where Lillie was, but the vision of herself tearing open her knee once again came to mind quickly. Though each little micro-movement out of him made his head throb, making him feel an awful lot like his brain was sloshing around in his own head, he had to bring himself to Lillie. The part of him that feared for her turned his stomach worse than the real pain shooting lightning bolts through his head. He turned himself, hoisting himself up only to roll onto his side. His legs slipped, bringing himself lower and away from the tree as his hands weakly found the ground in front of him, fighting to find some solid place from which to hoist himself up.

"D-Don't bother…" said Lillie. Even if he couldn't see, he could hear Lillie facing him. "P-Please don't get up… Don't try this time…"

* * *

At the banks of the river, Ash knelt down and leaned into the rushing currents of the river. His knees planted in the muddy silt—just beside where he had left his hat—and his hands planted down in the cool water, his fingers sinking into the sifting grains of dirt and rock underneath until he felt the tough stone giving some resistance against his palms and his grip felt sturdy. He leaned in like he was doing a push-up, dunking himself down head first into the water until he felt every inch of his head sink down into the cold river. He felt the coldness of it all brush against his cheeks and his forehead moments before he felt like he was part of it all. Water seeped into the little crevices of his ears, seeping down the length of every hair until it met his scalp.

And then Ash pulled up. All of his hair fell into his face immediately and hung down, shrinking against his skin like he was wearing a mask of some kind. He brushed it to the side, finally opening up his eyes, staring out across the river. The evening air was harsh on his skin, and it made him shiver—it was the first time that Ash had felt the night coming close, now that it was no longer sunset, now that it was dusk and the light from the sky was slowly pulling away. It would be incredibly dark in the forest soon.

Still, Ash was feeling normal again. That ringing feeling his head had disappeared, and he wasn't feeling as disoriented as he had been. Everything was a little bit clearer, he was feeling like his senses were fully back under his control.

A splashing in the water caught Ash's attention, and he looked beside him to a spot in the river just a few feet down. Pikachu had waded into the water, his body hunched over as he walked on all fours just a little closer to the shore than Ash had gone dunking his head. Though the water was shallow it came a third of the way up the side of Pikachu's belly, his whole body churning the water as he walked out into the river.

"Hey buddy…" Ash said, quietly. He hadn't heard how weak his voice was until then, and when he did he could feel the stiffness of a dry throat in the back of his mouth.

The river current was slow in the area that Ash and Pikachu had squatted at, being not much more than a gentle suggestion that brushed against arms or legs that had been submerged inside. Little eddys branched off from where Pikachu had planted all four of his stumpy little legs, and where Ash's arms were still planted he could feel the cold of the water slowly inching up his forearm with each little wake and rise of the current that came sloshing up. It reminded Ash that his arms were still planted deep in the cool river and the dirt clumps beneath. He raised his hands, making a dirt cloud come swirling out of the crater in the ground where his hands had been.

Brushing his hands together at the top of the current cleaned his hands better than he ever had at home, and though there was something extra satisfying about it he still felt uneasy. There had been a pit in his stomach that had been growing since he had first come down to the bottom of the ravine—since he had found Lillie.

Nightmares aside, there was something that had been plaguing Ash's thoughts. It appeared on his face as he looked back up from the shore and towards where the first trees appeared at the edge of land, where Lillie had placed herself again. It was deja vu for Ash, seeing her sitting back down by the tree again exactly as she had before with her back to the tree. Her leg had sprawled out too—even though it had been reattached and realigned to her knee, the part where she had clawed her fingers into the skin hadn't gone away and was still showing the mechanical parts underneath. She was far away, dozens of feet away, and the streaks of light that came through the treetops in the forest behind painted her in a sunset shadow, looking like a doll that had been poised in a strange portrait. He wasn't ready to go back, he wasn't ready to continue the same cycle the two of them had been going through just yet.

Looking back, him and Pikachu shared a look. Later wasn't going to come, prolonging it wouldn't give them more time.

Ash stood himself up. He grabbed for his hat and then for the blue-striped shirt he had been wearing before, picking it up from where he had set it on a rock nearby and letting it unfold from a single flick of the wrist. He wiped his face against it and dried himself as he walked back up from the shore, just before he slipped it over and popped his head and arms through the holes, fitting it to him. A large, face-sized stain of water appeared in the center and made the collar sink in, making him look more tired than he already was. Putting his head through the shirt had blocked his vision for a second, but when he re-emerged and could see again he had stopped short of Lillie and the tree she was parked under.

Though he had seen all sorts of different kinds of sadness from Lillie, this was a new one—this was melancholy. She was staring ahead, tears dried around her eyes like she had run out of tears to give. Her hands, accustomed to being folded in the center of her lap like a proper lady, sat uncomfortably at the ends of her dress, holding down the ends of it to cover her knees.

"Leave me alone..."

"I… really don't think that's a good idea."

"Yeah? Well… That's because it isn't! Don't!" Lillie's voice broke as she shouted. She had kept her head facing down into her lap, seconds before she lifted up and looked on Ash with all the fury she could muster. Her face had turned red beneath her shiny, soaked eyes. "If you… If you really think I'm weird… then just leave me alone…" Lillie shivered as she got the words out of her system. Her hands held her legs close, cradling beneath where the skin had ripped open again—Ash could see her fingertips brushing against the cut edge of the artificial skin, and though he tried to look away he felt a fear that only showed when he wasn't looking, when he wasn't sure she wasn't about to tear her own leg wide open.

All of Ash's worst fears had been confirmed—seemingly because Lillie's had come to the surface. Even if Pikachu was sitting down on the ground beside Ash, Ash could feel he was alone. His doubts showed as he looked away, searching the ground, only to come back more determined a second later.

"I'll leave you alone if you want, Lillie," said Ash. "I just want to let you know that we can stay the night here if you want. I was just going to get some stuff from the jungle if that's alright."

This made Lillie quiet. She was looking past the tops of her knees, down to the ground beyond her feet, looking intensely worried. She swallowed, sniffling, and for the first time in awhile trying to wipe the tears from her eyes.

"That's… that's fine…" Lillie whispered, just where Ash could hear.

With nothing else to say, Ash backed up towards the trees, looking down for only a second to make sure Pikachu was heading to follow him too. Though Pikachu was looking back already, Ash took a moment to look back too, then headed towards the thicker parts of the jungle. He walked ahead only a few steps before he heard a voice.

"Ash… Thank you…!"

Lillie had tried to speak up again, sounding brighter and more optimistic. Ash hadn't disappeared that far into the woods to avoid looking back and obscure her from his vision. She was still sitting there, and despite her tearful expression she was looking up with a smile.

Ash didn't say anything, he only smiled as he stepped back to head into the jungle further.


End file.
